Wednesday, September 14, 2016

To listen to our June 6, 2016 Subversity Show Online interview with Edward Leung, click here.

Edward Leung Tin-kei (梁天琦) is a key Hong Kong localist activist who was barred from running in the recent Legislative Council elections that nonetheless resulted in fellow localists gaining seats, keeping alight the flame for self determination and even independence. He would likely have won a seat too if he wasn't banned.

When I interviewed the Indigenous Party spokesman in June, 2016, a few days after his 25th birthday, while he expressed he would likely run in the 3 September 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council elections, little did I expect him to go through the motions of retracting his commitment to the cause of Hong Kong independence in an ultimately abortive attempt to qualify for the election (he was still banned), nor did I expect him to be pushed to the ground in a "scuffle" with a Ta Kung Pao reporter last month. However, he likely remains committed to the independence cause.

The Subversity Show Online interview in June reveals this bright Hong Kong University philosophy student as articulate and forthright when asked about his views on Hong Kong independence. In June, I was in Hong Kong attending a library sustainability conference, and had heard him speak the previous Saturday at an alternative June 4 forum at HKU, where he was one of five speakers (one from each generation of activism). There, he eloquently explained in Cantonese why as a longtime Hong Kong resident (he came as a young kid from Wuhan) he identified as a Hong Konger and believed, as did the other panelists, that it was more important for Hong Kong people to discuss Hong Kong's future, rather than China's, which they saw as just meddling in local affairs. Leung, after all, had won an amazing 66,524 votes when he ran last March in a by-election (he didn't win), proving that his views have huge resonance among the population, especially those around his age (he's 25).

In the interview he describes how he became radicalized when he saw his friends beaten up (bloodied) by the police in earlier local protests. He speaks out against the unfairness of immigration policies allowing Chinese nationals to be admitted to Hong Kong without Hong Kong government vetting (only China does it). His group is known for demonstrating against mainlanders but he explained that the purpose was aimed at stopping parallel traders and smugglers. While he himself came from Wuhan, China at age 1, his mom spoke to him in Cantonese from his arrival in Hong Kong, even though her Cantonese wasn't very good. That is why he identifies as a Hong Kong person, he explained.

As for politics in general, he saw the decline of social leaders, such as Joshua Wong nowadays, when he "doesn't have the same influence". According to Leung, people criticize him (Joshua Wong) as changing his political ideology, seeing independence as "no use", but he later changed his stance, now advocating self determination.

Ironically he expected people to criticize himself as well in future. As for his earlier by-election vote totals, he was surprised as he thought he was more radical than the public but he got more and more support. He explained what happened during the Mongkok protests (for which he has been arrested) and what led to it. Police actually allowed them to remain with the hawkers but later the riot squad showed up and some people argued they were there to enjoy the food. He was eating when a disturbance broke up, with the police declaring an "illegal assembly".

He says he was charged with "rioting" after the police shot two bullets into the air. People were beaten up and people started to retreat. We could "smell the gunpowder" and people became more angry. He sees the potential sentence of five years as "quite harsh".

As for government surveilance he says he has heard "weird voices" on his phone. He believes that publicity or the media coverage is the only way to protect the activists. Apps like Telegram are not safe enough; Firechat is not very useful.

On campus he has protested against the Hong Kong University Council head, with a class boycott on top of getting involved in the elections, thus missing more than half of the semester, but his department at HKU has helped him to rearrange his schedule so he could still complete his studies. He still had one summer semester after out interview.

One could say that Eddy Zheng (left) made something of himself
despite being incarcerated at San Quentin prison for 19 years plus another two
in immigration detention.The Cantonese
immigrant from Guangzhou, China, was only 16 when he waved a gun and participated
in a home invasion.

While he buffed up his body from careful exercise, he also
took care of his mind. Reading about Asian American and other people of color
struggles in the prison library – led him to enhance the collection as he
managed to get the prison authorities to add many more books on such
struggles.He petitioned the authorities
to implement Asian American studies in prison – instead he got put in solitary
confinement – the hole – as punishment for daring to ask that.

Ben Wang, director

In the meantime, he earned an associate degree by enrolling
in a prison program. And through it all, the activist community reached out to
him, offering him support even as he got turned down repeatedly by the parole
board, until the last time, which was successful.But then he was placed in immigration
detention because he was not able to apply for citizenship while incarcerated.

In the end, it was through a gubernatorial pardon (from
California Governor Jerry Brown) that led to his deportation case being ended. Eventually he was officially released in 2007.Now free, he managed to get San Quentin to implement
Asian American studies.

This man, now 47, remains committed to community service,
and through an intermediary, successfully reached out to the mother he
victimized when he was 16, with his written apology (in Chinese) accepted.

Scott "Chops" Jung, composer

Director Ben Wang (above, right) has put
together a tightly edited documentary, "Breathin': The Eddy Zheng Story," on the power of reconciliation and redemption
and about how writers like Helen Zia (author of Asian American Dreams and other works) inspired this inmate to commit his life to
community work, while even within the dark recesses of solitary confinement.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

"Toto" tells the story of a Manila hotel worker who seeks
every way to get a visa to America.Sid
Lucero plays Antonio Estares, the Toto in the film, who in his jovial and friendly
self tries to flirt his way with hotel guests – all with U.S. passports – to
try to get one to sponsor him on his American Dream.

This comedic look at the hopes of many
outside U.S. to get to the land of many dreams exposes the harsh reality that
without money, such a dream often becomes a nightmare.The very hetero Toto even gets cruised by an
American tourist staying in the hotel - will he succumb and sleep with the
American just to get a chance at a visa?

The film tackles his dilemma (and that of the American) in
an unexpected way.Instead of depicting
the American David Yeltsin (played by Blake Boyd) as a sexual predator after Asian young men, the director of Toto,
John Paul Su, manages to resolve the dilemma in this feature drama (115
minutes) to the ultimate satisfaction of both parties, with Toto retaining his
dignity and David also gaining what he needed. I'm not revealing what happens in the end; I'm afraid you will have to catch the film somewhere.

But Toto (the film) did manage to get to America, screening last Sunday at the 2016 Newport Beach Film Festival at
tony Newport Beach in sunny Southern California. The festival ends today.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

For a Subversity Show Online bilingual (Vietnamese/English) interview with Phong, click here. Thanks to Thuy-Van Nguyen for interpreting!

Garnering the Community Spotlight Award at the 2016
Vietnamese Film Festival held in Orange, California, “Finding Phong” (Tim Phong) is an exquisitely beautiful
and revealing 2015 film about a young Vietnamese man’s journey to become a
young woman.

Scene from "Finding Phong": Mother (in background) with Phong

Although the film lists two veteran indie filmmakers Tran
Phuong Thao and Swann Dubus as co-directors, credit nonetheless also belongs to
the subject of this documentary, Le Anh Phong.Phong manages capture with small video cameras her own journey (while
trapped in the body of a male), as she filmed herself talking to her mother who
is far away back in their rural home in Quang Ngai province in Central Vietnam.

Selfie scene from "Finding Phong"

Phong with Subversity Show host

Self-identifying as a girl in her childhood,
the star of the film also manages to capture what must be an ethnographer’s
dream footage, as sister, brother and friends talk explicitly about
heterosexual sex including ejaculation and oral and penetrative sex.In addition to her mother, in her 70s, who
wonders why she is fated to have such a son (she had been happy the boy was
born), the bearded father (in his eighties) is shown saying that it doesn’t
matter boy or girl as long as there is support for the Revolution!

The film has been expertly and carefully edited out of 250
hours of footage and ends right after Phong manages to complete the physical
transition at a Thai clinic.It was
totally unscripted, and could not have been, given the gems of humanity that
remain in the film after its length was trimmed.

Kudos to the producers Gerry Herman and Nicole Pham who have
partnered with Phong to see this amazing film reach the festival audience
worldwide.It won France’s Nanook GrandPrix at the 34th Festival International Jean Rouch last fall, and furthermore a
DVD of the film has been added to every French school library in an attempt at
helping overcome discrimination against the transgendered.

Phong at VFF

Most significantly, Phong tells me in our brief Subversity
Show Online interview, Phong’s mother testified before state legislators, and Phong’s
story of her gender transition no doubt was instrumental in the passage of Asia’s
first law permitting transgendered to register in their chosen gender, when
Vietnam’s legislature passed such legislation last November.The law comes into effect in 2017 after 282
legislators voted in favor of it, out of 366.Unlike Phong, who had to travel to Thailand for her operation, future
Vietnamese transsexuals will be more likely to find receptive clinics within
Vietnam.Phong, who had moved to Hanoi
to go to university and discovered she was not alone as a transgendered, now
works for the state Puppet Theater there, painting the figurines that are used
in Vietnamese cultural productions.–
Daniel C. Tsang.

About Me

This is a blog that pierces convention and disrupts the status quo. We seek intelligent turbulence over boring stability and creative uncertainty over certitude. Chaos is good. Stay tuned for future missives!